Ingredients on the wine label. Absolutely.

Last week three requests rolled in, "Alice, what is your position on wine ingredient labels?"Three requests meant that even though I have expressed my opinions in Naked Wine and in interviews, perhaps I best spell it out.   

For a long time I've been in favor of less government in wine instead of more, but in this instance I have to fess up that with so many additives allowed in wine, an ingredient label is best. If there's an ingredient list for soda, there needs to be one for wine. If you are warned about an orange juice from concentrate, the same should be true for wine that has been reverse osmosed/concentrated.  

Perhaps the TTB's willful ignorance  in this matter, and yes, I do believe that it is, comes down to the influence of a  wine lobby afraid to lose market share if required to disclose all. Even though, if I take the TTB's definition of natural wine, I could be convinced that the TTB, what I can imagine a non-wine drinking organization, believes what the wine lobby tells them, that wine is made in the vineyard, or that it is not possible to make wine with grapes. 

Have you read it?  The product of the juice or must of sound, ripe grapes or other sound, ripe fruit (including berries) made with any cellar treatment authorized.

Either way, the innocent is not so innocent, and a child of the 70s, in this case as in so many, the money lobby speaks. 

With the allowed additions for example, of; water, sugar, concentrated fruit juice from the same kind of fruit, malolactic bacteria, yeast, sterilizing agents, precipitating agents, PVPP and other approved fermentation adjuncts, what will it take for the TTB  to understand that most wines should be labeled as a wine beverage like my neighborhood convenience store's Chateau Diana? Because real wine, it is not.

I have not been successful in getting the TTB’s spokesperson Thomas Hogue, to take my inquiry about a real ingredient list seriously enough to get a satisfactory reply. Instead he sounding quite straight-faced wrote to me that on the table is an ingredient list, but the joke here is that it is only for nutritional value, carbohydrates, and calories.

 How many of us are drinking for our five fruits and vegetables? 

As more drinkers want their wines as natural as the food they seek, more wineries are going to present themselves as natural. Of course you can rely on your palate to be your guide, but the customer who is buying on philosophy and not taste will have a harder time.

Unless wine ingredients and processes make it on to a label, nothing can safeguard the product for the consumer who believes no label means nothing added.  Right now some wineries like  Ridge and Bonny Doon openly and extensively list their ingredient optionally. But as others follow suit, my fear is that the  TTB will outlaw them instead of insist it be required.

So, where do I stand? I give up. There should be. Yes. Get the ink rolling. I want one. 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Richard R]

Alice, I have a wine store in New Jersey and I have been asked so many times what the ingredients are in wine. What is the concentration of sulfites in this wine? Which wines are fortified? and with what? I honestly feel divulging this information is best for everyone... wine sellers and consumers? Do you feel there is that much benefit in adding sulfites to wine? Thanks your time.
www.quickstopwine.com

[Alicefeiring]

Hey Richard,

The sulfite addition is a big question and very different from minimal additions to mega addition--which is the norm. To makes no -sulfur wines the conditions have to be perfect. So yes, there is benefit to small addition for transporting and storing a wine, but a wine made well, without, to me, is just more delicious. But over sulfiting, is never a good thing.

[Richard R]

Thanks for your comment. I will be an avid reader of your blog. Again thanks for your time.

[George Coope]

As long as we're talking additives, don't forget acidulants, yeast nutrients and a list of oak adjuncts longer than your arm. I think that people in the industry are afraid that consumers would be shocked by the amount of stuff in there, and they're probably right.

[Koleman Zander]

our wine lists ingredients. they are grapes and occasionally 20 ppm sulfite. all domestic, low intervention wines do this right? why would they not? it's to their advantage

[Alicefeiring]

Thanks for posting, and RR, thanks for your shout out.

[David DeLaski]

We are finally doing this with our 2014 wines because it was the only way to show we use organic grapes (our vineyard is certified but the winery is not yet). The ingredient list is short (organic grapes, sulfur, bentonite) but since it includes Sulfur Dioxide we decided it is also important info to also list the amount of free and total S02 ppm. Of course it is a dance to get all this information ready and printed on a label in time for bottling so I hope it is appreciated!

[Alicefeiring]

Good luck!